SharePoint News & MVP Summit

I had an opportunity to meet the MVPs this week! Unlike last year, when I missed the summit altogether, I socialized at the paintball event hosted by a few MVPs last Sunday and attended the MVP/Microsoft dinner on Monday night. Members of my team, especially David Pae & Paul Andrew, were very involved as well as many, many others. It was a great summit and a special thank you to all the MVPs out there who not only attended all the SharePoint & social sessions, but also took the time to provide detailed feedback to Program & Product Managers. This is exactly what makes a great MVP.

Other news, well – there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said on our team blog. I spend the majority of my time looking at SharePoint “14” so I’ll have a ton to share when the time is right. What I can do is reiterate what is public knowledge on SharePoint “14”:

- Visual Studio 2010 will support SharePoint “14” development. Soma did a rather detailed blog post recently on this topic.

- SharePoint “14” will be 64-bit only. So start building your SharePoint 2007 solutions using 64-bit hardware. VSeWSS 1.3 also supports development on 64-bit hardware using 64-bit SharePoint 2007.

- SharePoint Conference 2009 is the place to learn about SharePoint “14”. Richard Riley owns this conference and I guarantee that it will be a great conference; a great opportunity to learn about SharePoint “14” & connect with SharePoint experts at Microsoft, the MVPs, partners and customers.

- SP2 is around the corner. I can’t comment on the specific date, but according to the public statement we’ve already made, it should be expected to release by end of April.

- Get ready for SharePoint “14” today. Get on 64-bit & get on the latest platform technologies – server OS, DBs, et cetera. Also, get on the latest cumulative update to stay current.

Many folks have asked for a SharePoint Overview presentation that I use; here’s a link to the one I presented at the last SharePoint Conference. Feel free to use this to map your own IT strategy with SharePoint.